Who am I — My Roots

At one point or another, everyone struggles with identity. Gender, nationality, ethnicity, etc. It’s part of life to have some sort of existential crisis. If someone hasn’t had one yet, they’re either too young, had it all figured out for them, or…maybe they’re just lucky.

Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose?

For each individual, it’s different. Subjectivity is a complex and beautiful thing and I wish it’s something that everyone could experience and appreciate. All I can share is what it was like through my point of view and hope that someone can relate to it. If they don’t, that’s okay too. I wanted to find a space where I can spew my thoughts. I’m still not sure it’s the right place, but this is my first time trying. The internet is a cruel place, so I’m going to expect for some people to come along and dump their negative opinions on me. I’ve learned over the years that there are some opinions that matter and some that don’t. If there’s someone who wants to come along and criticize, I’ll just giggle to myself because it just means that they feel the need to make someone else feel small because they’re a pretty small person IRL, so therefore, they have to make themselves bigger than someone else. Especially because then they won’t face the consequences of what they do on the internet (although, karma is quite the bitch, and she’s fucking awesome). I’m actually a pretty small person too — 5’0”, to be exact — but my aggressive and outspoken personality makes up for it. I like to think of myself as a rabid chihuahua. My theatre teacher once described me as ”small, but vicious” when I was in high school. My students (I’m currently a middle-school teacher) both adore me and are terrified of me.

Anyway, I digress. That’ll happen a lot here, so be prepared.

Who am I? I’m an aspiring writer. I’ve written since I was first able to start forming sentences. It started with one of those little blank Disney princess journals. I took a pencil and started writing about a French princess who got kidnapped by British soldiers and was rescued by a prince. Typical Disney bullshit, of course, but I was young and it was the 90’s, so that was when Disney was at its prime (in my opinion). I got the whole French and British stuff from my dad, who was a history buff. I continued hand-writing in college-ruled notebooks because wide-ruled notebooks pissed me off. In the 5th grade, I discovered how to use a computer and Microsoft Word. That was when everything changed.

That was also back when I didn’t know how to save things. My older sister discovered my writings on the computer that we all shared as a family and started to make fun of me, so I taught myself how to save things on CDs and floppy disks. I learned the hard way that floppy disks aren’t reliable at all, and then discovered the flash drive. I was so excited to use my 8MB flash drive that my dad gave me when I was maybe twelve or thirteen. I continued to also write in my notebooks and then type them to Microsoft Word, so I started typing when I was pretty young and learned how to type like a maniac at 205 words per minute by the time I got to my twenties. I brought all of my binders and notebooks around with me at school and would write any chance that I got.

I’m also a musician, and this started when I was about five years old with a karaoke machine and a cheap Casio keyboard my mom won in a raffle at work. I taught myself how to play the right hand of Scott Joplin’s ”The Entertainer” (ya know, one of the ice cream truck songs). My older sister got jealous that I was learning so fast, so she stole and hid the book that came with the keyboard because I was trying to teach myself how to read music. I just listened to the tracks that were stored in the keyboard and taught myself by ear. My parents finally signed me up for piano lessons around seven years old because they were able to afford me a proper electric piano at the time.

Then, music became my career choice and passion. I got my Bachelor’s in Music Education. Later on, I got my Master’s in English and Creative Writing.

For now, with this post, I think I’ll start with where I began and where I am now, and I’ll fill in the middle stuff with future posts. Let’s see where this goes.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,
EJT